


Pretty Lies

by The_Prince_of_Dots



Category: Thomas Sanders
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Lies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Prince_of_Dots/pseuds/The_Prince_of_Dots
Summary: Roman isn't stupid enough to believe Deceit's lies, but sometimes he wishes he was.





	Pretty Lies

He knew they were lies. He wasn’t  _that_  stupid. And even if he was, the guy’s name was  _literally_  Deceit. But golly, they were such  _nice_ lies. Such  _pretty_  lies. The kind of lies that you  _wanted_  to be true. The kind of lies that you tried your hardest to believe.

“Everyone loves you, Roman.” Lie.

“You’re the most important part of the team.” Lie.

“That outfit looks good on you.” Lie.

The lies were exactly what he needed in the moment. He was the Ego, after all; he loved compliments. He loved people being nice to him. It was so easy to believe the lies in the moment.

As soon as Deceit was gone, however, the fiction fractured. Once he was alone with his own thoughts, it was pathetically easy to see how much of a liar Deceit was. Even Roman couldn’t suspend disbelief enough to believe Deceit’s compliments, and he lived in a castle made of clouds.

If it were Logan that Deceit played this game on, it wouldn’t get very far. “Of course not everyone loves me,” Logan would say. “To think that every person on the planet has the same opinion is absurd. Absolutes are, for the most part, impossible.”

If it were Patton that Deceit tried to con, it wouldn’t last very long either. “Lying is wrong, kiddo. And besides, we’re all equally important here! No one is better than anyone else!”

It wouldn’t work at all on Virgil. He already assumes that everything positive said about him is a lie, and only a lot of argument from Patton and Logan can ever convince him otherwise.

But it worked on Roman, if in a completely opposite way. Because he knew they were lies. But, just like Anxiety often did, Roman thought a lot in absolutes. He shouldn’t, especially as an actor, especially as someone who knows that there’s a thousand ways to tell the same story. But he was not just an actor. He was not just Creativity. He was also the Ego. He was fragile. He was easily hurt. To him, if a compliment were true, it was 100% true, and everything was wonderful, and he felt like he could grow wings and fly! But if a compliment were false, that meant it was 100% false, a total lie, something made  _only_  to make him feel good, but instead it made him feel like  _nothing._

“Everyone loves you, Roman.” Lie.  _Nobody loves you, Roman._

“You’re the most important part of the team.” Lie.  _The team would be better off without you._

“That outfit looks good on you.” Lie.  _Nothing would ever look good on_ you _, Roman._

Really, who wouldn't prefer to hear the lies?


End file.
